New CITGO commercial

Christina and I saw an ad on TV earlier this evening in which Joe Kennedy (I love it how he just acts like we should know who he is) reveals that he is bringing cheap oil from "our friends in Venezuela." You know, the place where Hugo Chavez roundly denouces the United States and has slowly chipped away at the constitution in an effort to stay in power.

It raises a number of questions...
Why shouldn't the US accept aid from another country, especially when that county has a natural advantage? Why not let someone else foot the tab for the heating costs of the low-income and elderly? This should be a libertarian dream! It's not US taxpayer money that is being used and it's a charitable donation, the Nozickian way of providing welfare.

But it's coming from a hostile government...don't we provide aid to people in countries (through NGOs much like what Chavez is doing) where we dislike the government but want to help the people? What makes it justifiable for us to do this but repulsive if another country tries it? Is it American egoism? Or is it American individualism, that we barely can accept help from our own government, let alone the government of another country? I guess a tribe in Alaska has declined the offer for cheaper heating.

It really galls me that Chavez can even do this. It galls me that we can let a two-bit South American dictator actually provide something for our citizens that our government can't. I don't know how much I blame the federal government as much as I blame state and local government, especially for deregulating utilities and in essence, handing monopolies to utilities companies. Here in Maryland, the state government deregulated BG&E who immediately raised prices 60%. Sounds like a market failure to me. It's embarrassing to think that we can be such a rich country, but we can be outpricing the poor in this way. You can hold people responsible for their current monetary situations to some degree. But increasing utlity prices has nothing to do with someone's moral character or willingness to work.

Here's one of the Citgo commercials